The John James Newsletter. <67>

The John James Newsletter 67

4 July 2015 – Souppes–sur-Loing

Temperatures in France have pipped 40C over past two days.

Records broken as heatwave hits US northwest:

Both India and Pakistan have had heatwaves this year, Western Europe is developing one and North America is enduring one, in its northwest. The precise definition differs from country to country but the effects are the same.

Global warming is strengthening heatwaves. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, so the temperature difference between the North Pole and the Equator is getting smaller. It is this temperature difference that powers the jet stream. The result is that the speed is falling. And the path is meandering.

Fifty-two-nation Trade in Services Agreement uses trade regulations ‘as a smokescreen to limit citizen rights, The leak provides further evidence of how “a self-selected group of mainly rich countries” plans to “bypass other governments in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and rewrite its services agreement in the interests of their corporations,

While the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP) have become well known in recent months, the TiSA is the largest component of the US strategic neoliberal ‘trade treaty triumvirate. Together, the three treaties form not only a new legal order shaped for transnational corporations, but a new economic enclosure that excludes China, Russia and all other BRICS countries.

We support the Iraqi government in its fight against IS. We don’t like IS but IS is supported by Saudi Arabia whom we do like. We don’t like President Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but not IS, which is also fighting against him.

We don’t like Iran, but the Iranian government supports the Iraqi gov’t against IS. So, some of our friends support our enemies and some of our enemies are our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting our other enemies, whom we don’t want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.

If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they might be replaced by people we like even less. And, all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists who weren’t actually there until we went in to drive them out – do you understand now?

Successful petition by eight youths on C02 reductions. For the first time in the US, a court of law has ordered a state agency to consider the best available climate science when deciding to regulate C02 emissions,”

Activist and author praises ‘courageous’ invitation by Pope in face of fossil fuel industry’s power”In a world where profit is consistently put before both people and the planet, climate economics has everything to do with ethics and morality.”

Documents reveal that the Queensland Treasury expressed serious concern about public money being spent when no due diligence had been conducted by the then Newman government. Adani’s coal holdings in the Galilee had already become a stranded asset,” and now, with the Indian Group’s recent corporate restructure, it has effectively become “collateral damage”.

Poverty, Drugs, Afghanistan, Iraq, Terror, or How to Make War on Everything

War on drugs. War on poverty. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War on terror. The biggest mistake in American policy, foreign and domestic, is looking at everything as war. When a war mentality takes over, it chooses the weapons and tactics for you. It limits the terms of debate before you even begin. It answers questions before they’re even asked.